AfriGEOSS: Progress Report

Andiswa MlisaGEO Secretariat

AfriGEOSS side event, 10 November 2015, GEO-XII Plenary & Ministerial Summit, Mexico City, 9 – 13 Nov 2015

© GEO Secretariat

87 Participating Organizations

AfriGEOSS InitiativeEstablished within the GEO framework to:•Enhance Africa’s capability to use and manage EO for decision making;•Foster the activities of African countries in GEO by linking existing capabilities and initiatives in Africa;•Provide the necessary framework for African countries to initiate mutual activities within the scope of GEO;•Create synergies and reduce duplication.•Contribute to the implementation of the African Space Policy and Strategy;

Action Areas

Ensure continuous, two-way communication from national to regional to continental to global levels, and vice versa. The Coordination Network will serve to: •Engage all institutions & stakeholders, leading to a national and regional coordination mechanism; •Provide linkages between AfriGEOSS coordinated activities and national activities; •Provide national contacts as may be required by the AfriGEOSS Management (especially the Coordination Team); and •Undertake communication and outreach activities at the national, regional and continental level, such as dissemination of information.

Coordination Network

Observations• Africa is a continent not a country• We tend to focus at global, continental and regional levels, however

decisions to improve people’s quality of life are made at national level• Regional programmes are driven by national mandates

• Ownership and provision of resources• Sharing of information• Uptake and integration of products and services into national reports

• Sustainable capacity development, is that which is built at national level, which strengthens the effectiveness of the region

• Need to understand how to leverage the continental and regional structures - their diplomatic arrangement have an advantage

• Explore how best to leverage these structures to improve coordination and mainstream the use of EO

Growing Political Acknowledgement• AUC Specialised Technical Committee on

Education, Science and Technology Ministers urged the formulation of a partnership between the African Union Commission and AfriGEOSS geared towards the implementation of of the African Space Policy

• Partnerships– SADC Secretariat– AMCOMET Secretariat– African Union Commission

Programmatic Synergies

• MESA 1st Forum, September 2014: Cooperation and forging working partnerships with other institutions, as well as building synergies with other programmes and projects should be promoted, so as to ensure efficiency and synergy in the use of resources.

• The World Meteorological Organisation Integrated Global Observing System (WIGOS) document to the 66th Executive Council, June 2014, “The Council reiterated that collaboration and coordination with partners, including AfriGEOSS, … is a priority for WIGOS and will need additional attention in order to build synergy and avoid unnecessary duplication of effort.”

• Cooperative Arrangement on GMES and Africa signed by the European Commission and African Union Commission, April 2014, ”… stress that the implementation of this outcome should build on and be in line with Earth Observation initiatives such as AMESD, MESA, TIGER and AfriGEOSS...”

Action Areas

GEO Data Sharing Principles

“Free data access” Announcements

CBERS, 2007 (Brazil & China)Landsat family, 2008 (US)Sentinels, 2014 (EC)SPOT World Heritage Programme, 2014 (France)Shuttle Radar Topography Mission-30m, 2014 (US)

GEO Cape Town Plenary 2007

Full and Open Exchange of Data Data and Products at Minimum Time Delay and Free of Charge or Cost of Reproduction

GEO Home Page

GEOSS

Portal

GEODAB

Enabling a System of Systems

GEO Discovery & Access Broker

AfriGEOSS Consultations on EO Infrastructure for Data Access & Dissemination

Identify current data dissemination framework for Africa based on the existing infrastructure;

Data acquisition for Africa needs to be institutionalized and coordinated based on the different user profiles and needs to enable data & infrastructure providers to respond appropriately;

Advocate and raise awareness of available data and existing initiatives;

Support EO data (satellite & in-situ) access and dissemination in Africa by identification existing infrastructure, gaps and recommend actions for the community to implement.

Data & Infrastructure Coordination Team

African Space Policy & Strategy

” ACCESSING SPACE SERVICES…. ensure optimal access to space-derived data, information services and products ” African Space Policy draft document

Members: Egypt (NARSS), Ghana (GSSTI), Nigeria (NARSDA), RCMRD, South Africa (SANSA)

D&ICT Objectives

• Undertake a SWOT analysis of African EO infrastructure (data receiving, data processing, data archiving, and data distribution)

• Resource optimization of existing EO infrastructure• Identify and exploit other continental infrastructure that

enable EO data access and dissemination (e.g. ICT)• Develop action plan towards building EO infrastructures

that respond to gaps• Advocate for free and open access of African owned data

Earth Observations Capabilities in Africa

Undertake a SWOT analysis of African EO infrastructure (data acquisition, receiving, data processing, data archiving, and data distribution).

• 7 of the 11 satellite receiving stations are Africa owned

• 4 countries with space engineering capabilities• Provide access to a number of sensors through

online catalogs and offline access - hard drives• Data access policies vary from country to

country and sensor to sensor• Over 350 GEONETCast stations deliver about

200 satellite products

In-situ observations networks

Earth Observations Capabilities in Africa

• Space Agencies and Space Institutes• National Remote Sensing Centers• Regional Centers • Research centers

Undertake a SWOT analysis of African EO infrastructure (data acquisition, receiving, data processing, data archiving, and data distribution).

Earth Observations Capabilities in Africa

• Square Kilometre Array opportunity (SKA) for data management and processing

• Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) is an undersea fiber optic cable system,

• ASREN is the regional network in North Africa and Middle East Since 2010,

• UbuntuNet Alliance : Africa Sub-Saharan regional R&E networks,

• (HPCC) high performance computing centers• GEANT Global Research and Education

Network

Identify and exploit other continental infrastructure that enable EO data access and dissemination (e.g. ICT)

Co-location Concept with SKA

Using infrastructure put down for astronomy to host other instrumentation and thematic areas• Ground segments• Data processing capabilities• Ground instruments

• Earth Observation e.g. Meteorology• GNSS• Seismometers• Geodetic

Benefits of Co-location

• Take advantage of investments in astronomy• Build base infrastructure and network of instrumentation

• Data receiving stations for satellite data • Ground instruments – in situ networks • Processing hubs (computing power)• Communication network

• Ensure synergy and coordination among different disciplines• Build human capital development in a coordinated manner• Build sustainable scientific programmes in line with the African Space Strategy

Way Forward

• Finalise the status quo study on existing infrastructure– Inputs from the community encouraged

• Identify user requirements – profiles for various sensors• Identification of gaps• Formulation of actions as a response to gaps filling and

toward goals.

http://www.earthobservations.org

Thank you